


Never Was One for the Classics

by OriginalCeenote



Series: Suburban Vampires [2]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Because Steve IS History, Fluff, M/M, Mild Angst, Sleep All Day, Steve Knows History, Steve works as a security guard at a museum, Suburban Vampire AU, Up All Night, Vampire Skinny Steve, dinner date, sequel to Just Call Me Speed Bump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-04 00:39:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14008347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OriginalCeenote/pseuds/OriginalCeenote
Summary: Despite their rocky start, Sam spends some time in Steve’s world.





	Never Was One for the Classics

**Author's Note:**

> This is a little sequel to “Just Call Me Speedbump,” requested by kangofu-cb, and I could never refuse her anything. I still owe her a Sam/Bucky story she challenged me to last month. I’m working on it, kiddo. Thanks for enabling my insanity.
> 
> And thanks again to Scotland_Axel for feeding the Sam/Steve tags out here. You’re doing the Lord’s work.

Sam remembered when his parents dragged him to the Museum of Natural History when they visited his aunt Mara in DC the summer before he turned ten. They wandered through endless corridors of mummified bones, fossils, and displays of fake cavemen. Sam remembered feeling mercilessly bored and wandered off no fewer than six times until Darlene caught his arm and warned him “Don’t think I won’t tear you up when we get home if you don’t straighten up, mister.” Auntie Mara bubbled on about all of the different animals, asking Sam if he’d ever read about any of them in school yet. It was the longest afternoon of his _life_.

When Steve mentioned that he wouldn’t mind it if Sam met him at work for a late dinner, Sam considered swaying him away from it, but Steve texted him praying hand emojis and smileys, and Sam sighed, chuckling at his phone screen.

_A museum for our first date._

Steve sent back another smiley, this one a little more smug than the last. _Are we calling this our first date?_

_Might be the last if we have to spend the whole night there._

Steve’s texts paused for a few moments. Sam set his phone down and pretended he was working on his sales package for his account manager. He heard the phone ping at him as soon as his fingers hovered over his keyboard. Sam picked up the phone and barked a laugh that he knew his office neighbor had to have heard.

_Let’s not be hasty, now._ And then, _I promise I won’t put on my Boring Curator Voice and tell you about all the artists’ “blue periods” and when they overdosed on opium. C’mon. It’ll be fun._

Sam shook his head. _Okay. I’m putting my faith in you, buddy. Knock my socks off._  
Before Sam could go back to his sales package, the phone pinged again.

 

_That happens on the second date._

*

Sam waited on the corner, texting Steve that he was there after his Uber dropped him off. The phone rang just as he finished typing, and he swiped to accept the call.

“Hey, good lookin’.”

“Hey. I’m out here.”

“Meet me around the side,” Steve told him. “I’ll buzz you in.”

“Mmm. Buzz me in. You’ve gotta be pretty important to be able to do that.”

“Humor me, Sam. See you in a sec.” Sam liked the hint of laughter in his voice before he ended the call. Sam huddled more deeply into his jacket. Over the course of just a few nights, it was already colder and feeling like mid-autumn, just a scant whiff from winter. Sam already put the flannel sheets and heavy duvet on his bed and priced space heaters at Target. His landlord was precious about the thermostat, thinking a room was “comfortable” even when the tip of your nose was cold to the touch and your nipples showed through your shirt in the middle of the afternoon. Sam _despised_ his apartment, but it was the best thing he could afford by himself in the city and still actually _live there_.

Sam waited patiently by the side door, smirking at the “Authorized Personnel Only” sign. He heard Steve’s light footsteps on the other side and saw his blond hair appear through the wire-enforced security window. He grinned as he pushed the door open from the inside. Sam whistled at the sight of him in his uniform, noting the little earwig and the walkie-talkie hooked to his belt. Steve bit his lip, and could swear that he blushed.

“Lookin’ pretty sharp.”

“Clothes make the man. And these clothes… make me look underpaid.”

Sam clapped him on the shoulder and hefted the plastic bags dangling from his fist. “I brought dinner.”

“Well. That’s. That’s nice, but-”

“I know. I didn’t forget. You can do liquids, right?”

“Sometimes.”

“I picked up some hot and sour soup.”

“Wow. Someone’s fancy.”

Sam gave Steve’s shoulder a little bump with his. “You won’t get into trouble for this?”

“Nah. As long as we don’t touch anything that we’re not supposed to. Which, y’know. Is _everything_.”

“Right, right.”

“Don’t touch that.”

“Okay, okay.”

“You look really nice, by the way.”

Sam stroked his hand over his hair and made little finger guns at Steve. “Flattery will get you everywhere.”

“S’not flattery. You look really. Good.” Steve’s eyes flicked over Sam, and Sam felt warmth creep over his flesh in response. “C’mon. I wanna show you my favorite wing.”

They took the stairs instead of the elevator, all the way up to the third floor, and they headed to the fourteenth century European Paintings wing. “I’m about to show you more rosy-cheeked, pudgy naked people than you can shake a stick at.”

“Oh, good Lord…”

“C’mon. It’ll be educational.” Sam made a face, and Steve poked him to show him he was teasing. “Kidding, kidding. I actually wanted to show you the new exhibit, which happens to be down this hall.”

“Good thing for you, or this would have been a short date. I can’t believe I’m basically breaking and entering for a first date.”

“You’re still calling it a first date, though, so, hey! Yay, me!”

Sam didn’t even try to fight his grin. “Yay, you…”

They walked _past_ the European Paintings wing at a fast clip, and Steve took them around a darkened corner. “I think you’re gonna actually like this, Sam.”

“I’ll take your word… for it.” Sam’s eyes processed what he was seeing. “Oh. Wow. _Wow_.”

“This isn’t something you see every day,” Steve told him. “I actually read about this exhibit online before it came here.”

“Look at the time periods,” Sam mused. “Victorian age, right?”

“Uh-huh. Some of it. But some of these are from the eighteen hundreds, and a few were from around the Harlem Renaissance.”

“I need to bring my sister and my mom here. They’d really appreciate this.” Sam bumped Steve’s shoulder gently. “I appreciate it.”

Steve blushed and smiled before he tugged Sam’s sleeve to get him to follow him. “They used a different technique when they developed photos back then. You’ve heard of daguerrotypes?”

“At one point or another,” Sam confessed.

“Oh, then you’re gonna _love_ this!”

There were just so many photos to take in. The “African-American Photography, Late Nineteenth Century-Early Twentieth Century” exhibit took Sam’s breath away. This was his _history_ and progress from a perspective he’d never thought to look for until Steve showed it to him up close, with a respect and enthusiasm for each piece that brightened his eyes and made his voice sound fond.

Sam looked at photos of Black people driving model-Ts. Back people in soldier’s uniforms, nursing uniforms. Black women in what looked like Regency gowns that reminded him of romance novel covers, with elaborate pompadours and bonnets and stunning straw hats. Black farmers. Black pilots. Black cowboys. Something about that thrilled him.

“I never got to see any of these in my high school books.”

“I know! That’s why this is a big deal. You’re seen the Bessie Coleman exhibit at the Smithsonian Air and Space before?”

“It’s small, but I love it.”

“It’s neat, though, right?”

“My grandfather was a Tuskegee Airman.”

“Really?”

“He wasn’t the only officer in my family, but he was one of the first ones to go to college.”

“Wow. That’s… wow. They were amazing men.”

“Granddad had to bail out of a plane over Italy. But he made it home. He and Grandma were married for thirty years, and they made a roast duck once a month for Sunday dinner.”

“I’m glad he made it home.”

“Grandma sure was.”

“Yeah. But. Y’know. Now, you’re here.”

Sam’s smile was crooked and shy this time.

“Sorry. That was kinda cheesy.”

“No. Don’t be. But, yeah. It was.”

But they kept walking among the framed portraits, some of them sepia, but many of them immaculately restored. Steve told Sam so many details (“That house had indoor plumbing by then. That was also about the time that people made their own gin and moonshine in their bathtubs.”) Steve knew everything. He regaled Sam of men’s fashion and common toiletries and grooming products, and different farming practices and the kinds of wagons people rode and who built them, it it hit Sam then that this was firsthand knowledge.

“You’ve lived through all of this?”

Steve looked sheepish. “What gave it away?”

“Are you kidding me?” Sam pointed to a portrait of a handsome couple walking in downtown Chicago. The woman was carrying a parasol. “You were alive back then. During Prohibition?”

“Oh, way before then.” Steve’s tone was casual, but Sam couldn’t believe his ears or his eyes. Steve didn’t look a day over thirty. No gray hair. No wrinkles, except for a few tiny laugh lines around his mouth and the corners of his eyes. A part of Sam wanted to look around the corner and find the hidden camera men who were trolling him, and to tell Steve that he got the joke already, and that he didn’t need to run with it.

But Sam saw with his own eyes what happened to his car. He was Steve get up off the ground like he’d merely slipped. Not a scratch.

“So, before the phonograph?”

“Yup.”

“Before the sewing machine?”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Am I at least getting warm?”

“Lukewarm.”

“Oh, my God…”

Steve looked embarrassed. “Isn’t it impolite to ask someone their age?”

“Well, maybe if you actually _look_ old,” Sam teased, and he knew he was overreacting, and Steve was right to want Sam to chill, but still.

Steve was on a date with _history_. History spoke with a smooth baritone and had a twinkle in his blue eyes and a really cute smile.

“I was born right around the time Carter was in office.”

“Did you have a preppie phase in high school? Please say yes.”

“Mmmmm… nah. Not so much. I didn’t wear alligator shirts, but I did have a Benetton sweatshirt. I’m hoping that if I ever get famous, my yearbook photo when I’m wearing it doesn’t conveniently resurface.”

Steve snickered. “Nice.”

They went to Steve’s security booth and opened up the food. Steve inhaled the scent of the soup. “Ooh. Smells good.”

“Was this a wasted effort? I mean… it’s not like I could just run out and buy you blood, right?”

“Not in this neighborhood,” Steve joked. “I’ve got my sources, but I still kinda like to get it the old fashioned way.” Steve tasted the food and made an approving face. “This wasn’t a wasted effort. I can work on this and at least keep you company.”

“Do you ever miss this?”

“What? Food?” Steve shrugged. “Hard to really decide, Sam. It’s six of one, and half a dozen of the other. I mean, being like this isn’t as bad as you’d think. I don’t get sick anymore. That’s _huge_. Before I was turned, I almost died from smallpox.”

Sam’s dumpling dropped back into the food carton when he lost his grip on his chopsticks. “Smallpox?”

“Yup.”

“Holy _shit_.”

“Didn’t have all this fancy household bleach and hand sanitizer back then. I don’t know if ‘the future’ is any brighter, Sam, compared to when I was just a tyke, but it sure does smell better. If you were wondering what my favorite invention that I lived to see someone come up with, Sam, it’s deodorant.”

Sam wrinkled his nose. “That’s nasty.”

“It kinda was,” Steve agreed. “Yeah. So, it’s nice not to worry about walking down the street alone at night anymore. I can pretty much live anywhere and not have to worry about being trapped out in the cold, or heatstroke, but that whole ‘can’t go out in the sun’ thing kinda sucks.” Steve gestured to the space around them. “I work for the sake of rent. I don’t have a high grocery bill, obviously.”

“Must be nice. Seriously, Steve, eggs cost five dollars.”

“Shut the front door,” Steve shot back, whistling at that figure. “That’s highway robbery. Wow. Okay. I don’t miss food after all, then. When did that happen?”

“Everything just costs more, now. Every time the price of gas goes up, food goes up, too.” Sam huffed a laugh, shaking his head. “It’s so funny that you really don’t have to think about that.”

“Yeah. Not anymore. Just as well, anyway. This soup is good. I love all the seasonings in here… my mom could never afford spices. There were a lot of things we couldn’t afford back then.”

“Way back when,” Sam mused.

“Yeah.”

That was when it hit Sam, because of course his traitorous brain had to come with something melancholy. “You really don’t have anybody.”

“I was an only child, anyway.”

“Yeah, but… wasn’t there anyone else?”

Steve shook his head sadly and took another sip of his soup.

“Wow.”

“My social circle is kinda narrow. That’s why I don’t have a lot of small talk ready.”

Sam chuckled. “Believe me, I don’t do ‘small talk.’ I like this. I like people who can surprise me.”

“Oh, we’re gonna have fun, then, buddy.”


End file.
